'Game of Thrones' recap: Episode 5, 'The Wolf and the Lion' -- Tearing each other to shreds

Hang on to your hats, folks, this one moves fast. And it gets ugly. Members of PETA, the La Leche League and Focus on the Family (now there’s an unlikely trinity) -- consider yourselves warned. You're not gonna like this one bit.

* Ned Stark, head of the house of Stark, was in the capitol of King’s Landing, trying to find out why his predecessor in the role of King’s Hand was killed – it somehow involves one of the king’s bastard sons -- and coming to the brink of open warfare with the King’s wife, Cersei Lannister.

* Ned’s wife, Catelyn Stark, nee Tully, had perhaps unwisely captured Cersei’s brother, the dwarf nobleman Tyrion Lannister, at a King’s Road inn, for two attempts on the life of her now-paralyzed son Bran. (PS: Tyrion didn’t do it, and even invented a handicapped horse saddle for little Bran.)

* Ned’s daughters -- Sansa the would-be princess and Arya the would-be swordfighter -- were finding King’s Landing a less than great place to live.

* King Robert drank a lot of wine, entertained a lot of whores, and generally did his best to irritate his wife, his guard (including his wife’s brother Jaime) and Ned.

* At the Wall in the North, Ned’s bastard son Jon Snow found a friend in the fellow virgin Samwell; and in Dothrakiville, Daenerys – daughter of the deposed king, now pregnant with the heir to the Dothraki horde – finally realized her bat-shit crazy brother Viserys was never, ever going to be King of Westeros or anything else.

But you can forget that last bit, because we won’t be seeing Jon Snow or Daenerys until next week.

We start with the compass rose over King’s Landing like usual, and up the Kingsroad to…..oh, this is new, a place called the Eyrie, a round building that pops up looking like the Capitol (US version), then flowers mechanically up and up until it’s a rounded tower, a copper cylinder sticking out of the landscape. Then up to Winterfell and the Wall and across to the Dothraki lands, but that’s misleading – we’re never going to get that far this week. And lets’ begin.

Ominous drums play loudly. Ned walks about the tournament grounds, which are being readied for another day’s bloodshed; someone’s actually bothering to rake the dirt jousting path. (I never thought I’d say this, but thank God somebody came up with football. I couldn’t take it if this is what we watched on Sunday afternoons.)

Inside a tent, someone is stiching up the gaping hole in Sir Hugh’s throat. And this is one of the mildest gross-out scenes we'll see tonight. Ned stalks in – that guy doesn’t just walk anywhere – and asks if Sir Hugh had any family. Apparently not; the aging knight we last saw trading war stories with King Robert sat vigil for Sir Hugh last night. Ned looks at Hugh’s armor and notes that it’s never even been worn before.

“Bad luck, him going against the Mountain,” the aging knight – HBO says he’s Barristan Selmy; I got it to hand it to George Martin, he’s great at creating names – tells Ned. Ned disagrees. How did he happen to make his first attempt at jousting against a guy nicknamed Mountain?

Ned and Selmy leave; Selmy recalls that they once fought on opposite sides at some battle. Ned says he and his wife are both glad they never fought one to one, because “a widow’s life” wouldn’t suit Cately. Selmy pshaws that, but Ned insists – Ned’s father said that Selmy was the best he’d ever seen, and Ned never knew his father to be wrong in matters of warcraft. Then he changes the topic – how did young Sir Hugh, until a few months ago only a squire, get the money for such fine armor?

Selmy doesn’t want to be having this conversation and mentions that the king wants to joust today. Never gonna happen, Ned says.

“The king tends to do what he wants,” Selmy observes.

“If the king only did what he wanted all the time, he’d still be fighting a damned rebellion,” Ned grumps, marching off.

He grumbles his way into the king’s tent, where poor Lancell Lannister – the pretty-faced boy who appears doomed to wait on king whenever he’s in a royally bad mood – is trying to fit a tiny armored vest around a king’s outsize belly. It’s not going well.

“Your mother was a dumb whore with a fat ass, did you know that?” Robert Bellows at him. He tells Ned that Lancell has “one ball and no brains;" he can't even put on armor.

“You’re too fat for your armor,” Ned says.

Fat? Fat?! The King fumes, and then – as Ned looks pointedly at the paunch hanging out of his shirt – starts laughing. Poor Lancell grins with relief and is immediately slapped down. “Oh, it’s funny, is it?” Robert bellows at him to find a “breastplate stretcher.” Lancell sprints away and Ned and Robert giggle; apparently, there’s no such thing. Robert still wants to fight, though, and Ned tells him not to.

“Why, because I’m king? Piss on that, I wanna hit somebody!”

Robert tells him he’s guaranteed to be the last man standing, because no one would dare touch the king. “Those cowards would let me win?” “Aye.”

Ned asks about Lancell – Robert thinks he’s an idiot, but Cersei insisted on his being hired. Robert blames his old King’s Hand, Jon Aryn, for saddling him with Cersei and her whole family. Robert grumbles that being King was supposed to mean he could do whatever he wanted.

“Let’s go watch ‘em ride, at least I can smell someone else’s blood,” he says, lumbering for the door. Ned has to stop him and point out that he’s wearing an ensemble that’s more plumber than Puisant Ruler – a raggedy shirt unbuttoned to show off his belly. (Lots of it. If he was a woman, you’d figure he was in his third trimester.) Robert finds this hilarious.

And we’re at the tournament, and the stands are packed and rowdy. The knight called The Mountain is up next, in his black metal tank-on-horseback armor. Ned is watching with Sansa this time; he asks where Arya is. “At her dancing lesson,” Sansa says. Sansa’s got her hair done differently; like all country girls after a few months in the city, she’s picked up some style tips. And suddenly she’s all over smiles.

“The knight of the flowers!” she says, gushing.

And here he comes….Flowers is short, thin, has long hair falling in his eyes. He’s wearing armor that looks like somebody came up with the bright idea of making tinfoil in an attractive floral print. He’s got a petite white horse; the horse is wearing Laura Ashley. He’s the Justin Bieber of Westeros.

He trots up and gives a bright red rose to….Sansa. She blushes and thanks him. She totally misses Sir Bieber shooting a significant look over her head to….holy cow, Renly the king’s little brother! Who blushes just as prettily as Sansa.

The knights face the king’s stand, Sir Bieber all white and silvery, The Mountain all black and…black.

Sir Bieber bows elegantly; The Mountain does not. They canter to the end of the jousting field. Sir Bieber puts on a helmet that looks like a silver trifle bowl. Sansa grabs her father's arm. Baelish, in the stands, bets Renly that the Mountain will win, and boasts of all the things he’ll buy with his winnings; Renly says he can buy a friend.

A horn toots. The horses thunder at each other – and wham, down goes the Mountain!
His horse crashes right through the fence separating the jousters. Renly says it’s too bad Baelish will remain friendless; Baelish retorts that Renly is lucky to already have a friend -- and his eyebrows indicate that he means Sir Bieber, and that “friend” is only one way to put it.

Sir Bieber prances at the end of the jousting lawn. The Mountain bellows for his sword.

The Mountain raises his sword and – gah! -- slices off his horse’s head, so fast it’s practically still neighing as its head falls into the dirt. Blood spurts everywhere.

I’m not sure what exactly happens in the next few seconds, as I’m gagging into the couch trying to un-see what I just saw, but judging by the sound the crowd found that as gross as I did. By the time I look up, Sir Bieber is off his horse and sprawled on the dirt. The Mountain is bashing at him with his sword, and that armor must be stronger than it looks, because Sir Bieber is at least still moving around. Renly looks devastated.

HBOKing Robert's brother Renly, who has a thing for a young knight

Intriguingly, the person who leaps to Sir Beiber’s defense is….The Hound, Prince Joffrey’s bodyguard and, as we learned last week, The Mountain’s abused little brother. He jumps out of his seat, stands over Sir Bieber and fights off his brother’s attack. They’re battering at away at each other with bone-crunching force; the music swells to an ominous crescendo. Something’s going on here that’s not obvious; wasn’t spilling blood the point of this whole affair? Finally Robert bellows for them to stop, in the name of the king. The Hound promptly drops to his knees, head bowed. For a minute I’m sure The Mountain is going to decapitate him just like the horse, but then he grimaces and stalks off. Sir Bieber jumps to his feet and grab’s the Hounds’ arm.

“I owe you my life, sir!” Sir Bieber says.

“I am no ‘Sir’” the Hound replies, but Bieber raises the Hound’s arm in victory, and the stands erupt in cheers. Sansa, clutching her rose, leads the crowd in a rousing chorus of “We Are The Champions.” (No, not really. But she would if she could.)

And….away we go, to a narrow dirt path running between piles of black rocks. Tyrion Lannister is on horseback, hands bound, sack over head. Someone takes his off his hood, and he sees that he’s accompanied by the soldiers Catelyn rallied to her side at the inn. Including the busking balladeer with the lap harp. This isn’t the King’s Road, Tyrion notes; Catelyn had said she was riding for Winterfell.

Smart, Tyrion says. That way everyone looking for them will look on the King’s Road. He’s sure his father must have offered a huge reward for his safe return by now. “And everyone knows a Lannister always pays his debts,” he says, loudly; this seems to be directed at the soldiers Catelyn’s scrounged up, but no dice.

Tyrion asks to be untied; he points out that he’d have a hard time running from this bunch, and if he did he might be eaten by “shadowcats.” Catelyn snorts that he shouldn’t be worried about those, and somehow this leads Tyrion to deduce that they’re on the “Eastern road” (although calling it a road is serious flattery) and going to Catelyn’s sister’s place. They might as well kill him right here, he says. It’s been five years since Catelyn saw her sister, he points out -- and while the sister was always “touched,” apparently now she’s gone right round the bend. (I guess Tyrion would have seen her more recently, since Catelyn’s sister is -- if you recall Episode One -- the widow of the previous King’s Hand Jon Arryn. Who fled to the Eyrie when her husband died – oh, yeah, and she thinks the Lannisters killed him. No wonder Tyrion’s worried.)

“I’m not a murderer,” Catelyn says.

HBOTyrion fights off attackers with a shield

“Neither am I” insist Tyrion. “I had no part in the attempt on your son’s life. What sort of imbecile sends an assassin with his own blade?!”

Good point, but before he can elaborate – wham! A rock thrown from a cliff smacks the harpist in the head. A flying hatchet gets somebody else, and five guys with axes come running up the road, roaring. A melee breaks out, with several beheadings and lots of grunting. Catelyn crouches behind a wall and pulls out a knife that looks absurdly small.

Tyrion, still bound, begs her to untie him. “If I die, what’s the point?” he asks, and she slices off his rope handcuffs. He grabs someone’s shield and as one of the attackers is about to kill Catelyn, he gets the guy in the groin. Then pounds the attacker’s head to jelly with its pointy end.

When the yelling’s over, only five are left alive – Catelyn, Tyrion, White Hair (who got a few very fancy moves in, for a senior citizen), some guy limping in the background, and one soldier from the inn. I think he’s the busker. The soldier walks up to Tyrion.

“You need a woman?” he asks, panting. “Nothing like a woman after a fight.”

Tyrion gives Catelyn a sideways glance. “I’m willing if she is….”

(And who were those guys? Not a clue. They didn't seem particularly interested in Tyrion. We never do find out.)

And….to Winterfell. Someone is putting arrow after arrow into the bullseye of an archery target. It’s Theon Greyjoy. He’s watched by Bran, who’s been moved from his bed out to the yard, and Gray Cowl, the courtier/teacher.

Gray Cowl is pointing at a map of Westeros with a stick. Bran has to idenitify each place, naming it’s sigil, it’s “words,” and who runs the place. I missed what he said about the first place, the Iron Islands, but it’s run by the Greyjoys.

“Famous for their skills at archery – and lovemaking,” Theon pipes in.

Gray Cowl points to the map, to a city marked “Lannisport.”
“The Wester Lands,” Bran recites, playing with a little toy fish. “Sigil, a lion. Words – a Lannister always pays his debts.”

“No, no,” interrupts Gray Cowl. “A common saying, but not their official motto.”

“Is that the right order? Family comes first,” Bran notes. He’s in a little bit of a snit. Gray Cowl says his mother isn’t here at home because she went off to protect her family. How can she protect her family if she’s not WITH her family, Bran asks?

Bran’s pretty upset that he woke up from his coma and his mom’s nowhere to be found.Gray Cowl tries to cheer Bran up by promising him that he'll learn to shoot arrows from horseback, just as soon as Lord Tyrion's funky saddle is made for him.

And later that evening? Theon, having displayed his skill at archery, is now showing he’s a true Greyjoy by demonstrating their other family skill. See above. With – hey, at last, it’s Roz! The whore who enchanted all of Winterfell. (Or at least Jon, Tyrion and Theon.) She’s pretty. Theon's jealous of the time she spent with Tyrion – he makes Roz tell him how the dwarf is in bed. (To sum up her answer: Creative.) This doesn’t go down well with Theon.

Is it worth mentioning that this entire time she’s topless, and he’s everything-less, with only a strategically placed candle preventing the scene from spilling over into X-rated territory?

The jealous Theon starts boasting how his family is just as good as the Lannisters, the Greyjoys have been lord of the Iron Islands for umpty-something years, no Lannister can look down on him, yadda, yadda…

“No? How about the Starks?” Roz interrupts. She’s no fool. When Theon protests that he’s a ward of the Starks, she snarks: “That’s a nice word for it.” She reiterates what we learned last week: Theon’s Dad rebelled against King Robert, and Ned Stark has been holding Theon, the only remaining Greyjoy son, hostage since he was 8 years old to prevent a second Greyjoy rebellion. People just keep rubbing Theon’s face in it, don’t they? Theon’s annoyed enough by this to start pushing Roz around a little, a situation she expertly defuses by grabbing him by the, um, Greyjoystick. He leaves.

Back to King’s Landing, where a cute tabby kitten suddenly realizes it’s being stalked – by Arya. Remember Arya was told by her “dancing instructor” (aka sword-fighting tutor) to study cats? She's following through. But the cat doesn’t feel like sharing fencing tips and takes off down a corridor, followed by Arya, who’s shouting “I won’t hurt you!” Clearly they’re more into dogs than cats at Winterfell; no feline worth its fur will fall for a line like that.

Elsewhere in King’s Landing, Ned is telling bald Varys that his son has regained consciousness, but not the use of his legs.

“I suffered an early mutilation myself. Some doors close forever; others open in most unexpected ways,” Varys says.

Small talk over, Varys says that he’s here to tell Ned that the king -- “a fool, your friend I know but a fool” -- is in danger, “doomed unless you save him.” He’s telling Ned because he’s decided Ned is a man of honor, as Varys is. The king’s in danger of falling victim to the same poison that killed Jon Arryn – something called the Tears of Lethe (Leese?), Lys, which is “as clear and tasteless as water and leaves no trace.” How convenient.

“Someone who could afford to,” Varys says, eyes wide and unblinking. The man's part owl.

Hmmm…and who keeps the kingdom afloat with their gold? Right. Ned takes that in, then wonders aloud why .... someone .... would kill Arryn after he’d been in power 17 years.

Varys keeps his stare steady. “He started asking questions,” he says.

And to a steep, torch-lit staircase. A cat comes hightailing it down the steps, Arya in hot pursuit. But she stops dead at the sight of….a dragon’s skull. Viserys description hardly did it justice; its front teeth are bigger than Arya head to toe. It’s in a big corridor with a metal gate at one end.

Arya’s touching the skull – as what kid visiting the Museum of Natural History hasn’t wanted to with a dino or two? – when someone opens the metal gate and two men walk in, deep in conversation. Arya hops right inside the skull to hide.

“He’s found the one bastard already, he has the book – the rest will come.” It’s Varys. It sounds like him, anyway. The speaker is cloaked but that sounds like his voice.

“When he knows the truth, what will he do?” asks the other man.

“The gods alone know,” Varys replies. “The fools tried to kill his son. But what’s worse, they botched it. The wolf and the lion will be at each other’s throats. We will be at war soon, my friend.”

“We’re not ready,” the other man says, and then says something that suggests that “this Hand” be killed just like Jon Arryn. Varys disagrees. And as he does, he’s fastening the metal gate shut and locking it.

But the other guy – and hey! As he moves through the torchlight, we can see it’s Mr. Exposition, the guy Daenerys and Viserys stayed with in Pentos. He’s doing his thing again; Khal Drogo, he’s saying, won’t make a move until his son is born. Varys and Mr. Exposition leave, Varys urging swift action, Mr. Exposition urging delay. The last thing we hear Varys say is “this is no longer a game for two players.”

Arya runs out of the skull and over to the gate, but there’s a giant metal lock on it now. And I guess she can’t go the way she came for fear of running into Varys, so she runs down the corridor and down a flight of stairs.

In the throne room. The throne of many swords is glinting in what looks like late afternoon light. Baelish is looking at it when Varys comes in from the other side of the room.

“The first to arrive and the last to leave,” Varys greets him. “I do admire your industry.”

“You do move quietly,” Baelish replies. He offers Varys a freebie at one of his whorehouses. Varys likes boys apparently, and in some kind of kinky way, because Baelish makes a big fuss about offering him “beauty and discretion.” Varys recites the kinks of some of Baelish’s other clients – amputees, cadavers -- and Baelish shrugs. “All desires are valid for a man with a full purse,” he says.

They needle each other a bit more, but then it’s down to brass tacks. Varys threatens to tell the Queen that Baelish is the one who gave the Starks the idea it was her brother Tyrion who tried to kill Bran. And Baelish threatens to mention to the king that he just saw Varys with a “foreign dignitary” from across the Narrow Sea – where Varys himself hails from. That’d be Mr. Exposition, friend of the Targaryen kids.

Things have devolved into a staring contest when Renly runs in and tells them they’d better hurry up, the King is coming to the council meeting, due to the disturbing news from across the sea.

And we’re outside the castle….at the bottom of an eroded stone cliff, where Arya emerges from a cave, smudged with grime from head to foot. She heads off toward the red towers that loom far, far above. We watch her scurry through the streets and all I can think is that she’s doomed, some one’s going to grab her and put her in a whore house or worse. It’s as bad as watching Bran climbing the walls.

But she arrives unharmed at the castle gates, where two soldiers tell her to run off, “boy.” (She is still wearing her breeches.) Yeah – you don’t cross my girl Arya like that.

“My father is Hand of the King,” she says, fiercely. “And I’m not a boy, I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell. And if you lay a hand on me my father will have both of your heads on spikes. Now, are you going to let me by, or do I have to smack you on the ear to help with your hearing?”

She’s all of three feet tall. The soldiers look at each other, look at her, and let her by. That Maisie Williams has a great career in front of her.

The soldiers let Arya by, but Ned doesn’t. He’s giving her the third degree, and she’s telling him about the conversation she heard down in the dungeons, about the wolf and the lions fighting and someone thinking it would be a good idea to kill Ned Stark….

“And what were you doing in the dungeons?” Ned asks. Arya thinks a moment.

“Chasing a cat.”

Ned’s about to put his head in his hands when the Winterfell guard captain arrives, saying a Night Watchmen is here to see Ned. It’s the guy Tyrion was traveling with! The watchman says that he’s in King’s Landing looking for recruits – but that’s not why he rode here “so hard I damn near killed my horse.” The whole city will know by tomorrow that "your wife, my lord. She’s taken the Imp.”

And we’re back out on the Eastern Road, which is still just a dirt track, when Catelyn and her party meet up with a posse of knights in armor from “the Vale.” The whole crew trots toward the Eyrie – a tower on top of a pile of stone. The only reason we know that’s what it is, is that Tyrion says:

And in King’s Landing, Ned is summoned to the council to see the King. “Is it about my wife?” No, the summoner says, looking at Ned like he’s crazy. It’s about Daenerys Targaryen.

HBONed confronts the council

“The whore is pregnant!” King Robert is bellowing when Ned gets there. (In Mark Addy’s delivery, the word “whore” has at least three syllables.) Robert wants Daenerys, her unborn child and “that fool, Viserys” killed.

There’s a long conversation here; Robert wants them dead, Ned feels that won’t be honorable and the King will be making himself as bad as the mad king he replaced if he orders the kill. (I don’t get this; these people slaughter each other just for entertainment. What’s one more dead teenager to them? But whatever.) The news of Daenerys’ pregnancy comes via Ser Jorah, and Ned thinks taking the word of a “traitor” is stupid to begin with. (“Slaver, not traitor,” Baelish the whoremonger clarifies.) The rest of the council has no problem with assassinating Daenerys.

But Ned’s had enough. Plus, he knows – and the king does not – that his wife just captured the king’s brother-in-law. He pulls the Hand of the King pin off his chest.

Back in his room, Ned’s packing as fast as he can, and tells Jory to get his daughters. Baelish shows up and asks when Ned’s leaving. ASAP. If he delays, Baelish says, Ned can meet the last person Jon Arryn spoke to before he died. Ned sends Jory to guard the girls and runs after Baelish.

And to the Eyrie, into a big round room painted blue and gold, with high arched windows. Catelyn, Tyrion and the Busker are speaking to… sweet heavens, it’s a cross between a Walkurie and a La Leche League lady. Catelyn’s sister – Lysa, sounds like Liza – is wearing braids on her head, and a belted bedsheet in lieu of a dress, with one enormous breast protruding from it. And she’s nursing a boy who is at least eight years old. Catelyn and Tyrion both looks grossed out as Lysa yammers that her house has been polluted by the arrival of a Lannister, and that her son is big and strong, and that Jon Aryn’s last words were “the seed is strong,” which she interprets as praise of her son's health.

HBOTyrion is imprisoned in the Eyrie

The nursing boy pops off his…mother….to take in the proceedings, and asks if Tyrion is a bad man.

“He killed your father!” Lysa yells.

“Oh, I killed him too? I have been busy,” Tyrion says.

The nursing boy starts yelling at Tyrion, flapping his arms, saying that he wants to see the bad man “fly.” Catelyn looks sideways at Tyrion like she’s starting to rethink this whole thing. She tells Lysa that Tyrion is her prisoner and must not be harmed. Lysa tells a guard to take Tyion somewhere where he can rest. “Introduce him to Maude Mord,” she says, smiling.

The guard throws Tyrion on his face into a stone prison room – a singular one. It has only three walls. The fourth wall is missing – instead it’s open to the wind, and there’s a drop dozens of stories down. The camera pulls back and we see Tyrion’s cell is high up on the Eyrie, with nothing else but mountain peaks as far as the eye can see. Tyrion looks over the edge, then backs away to the far wall.

And back to King’s Landing. In a lushly furnished room, Renly, the king’s brother is topless, with Sir Bieber, the knight of the flowers, also topless. Bieber is slowly
shaving Renly’s chest with a straight razor. Ay, caramba. They’re both very pretty boys; Sir Bieber with his pale eyes and fluffy hair could probably out-princess Sansa.

“You prefer me like this?” Renly asks, about his new-shaven chest. Apparently Bieber does. Renly complains about not being taken seriously as a warrior, especially because he can’t stand the sight of blood; Bieber, apparently, has no such problem and is an expert swordsman. Renly is not, but Bieber ribs him for never practicing. Bieber moves on to shaving Renly’s armpits.

“Everywhere?!” Renly says, but he lets Bieber continue.

They discuss Ned Stark’s leaving (it’ll blow over), Daenerys pregnancy, Robert’s bloodlust and his disregard for Cersei. Robert does like Cersei’s money, Renly notes. He has to hand it to the Lannisters, he says:

“They may be the most pompous, ponderous (C-words) the gods ever saddled the world with, but they do have an outrageous amount of money.”

Sir Bieber looks up at Renly from under his forelock.

“I have an outrageous amount of money,” he murmurs.

Bieber starts to elaborate:He's got money, and he knows what he wants to buy with it. That Renly should be king. Bieber’s father could bankroll him. Bieber himself could be Renly’s champion. Everyone would love it, much more than any of the other heirs becoming king – Renly may be fourth in line but “Joffrey’s a monster…and Stannis has the personality of a lobster.” (Joffrey’s Robert’s son, and Stannis is his brother, older than Renly – thank you, HBO website.)

Bieber sticks the straight razor into Renly’s nipple, making him bleed. “Look at it!” Bieber insists. He’s going to have to get used to the site of blood if he’s going to be king. And everyone wants him to be king because he’s so kind. Because he doesn’t love killing the way Robert does

Cut to King Robert, sulking over a cup of wine. Cersei walks into his rooms. “I’m sorry your marriage to Ned Stark didn’t work out…you seemed to good together.”

“Glad I could do something to make you happy,” Robert says.

Robert outlines a future of Dothraki horselords running rampant over Westeros. The armies of Westeros are scattered, and the lords of Westeros lost their uniting purpose when the Mad King died, he says. He’s not sure what’s holding the country together anymore.

“Our marriage,” Cersei offers, and they both find this hilarious.

“How long can hate hold anything together?” Robert asks, and Cersei says the 17 years they’ve already been together is, after all, quite a long time. They drink to that thought.

Cersei asks about Lyanna Stark, Ned’s sister that Robert was supposed to marry. What was she like? Robert can’t even remember what she looked like, he says – but he knows that she was the one thing he ever wanted. Someone took her away from him. “And seven kingdoms couldn’t fill up the hole she left behind.”

“I felt something for you once, you know. Even after we lost our first boy,” Cersei tells Robert. “Was it ever possible for us, was there ever a time, ever a moment?” No, Robert says, after a pause.

“Does that make you feel better or worse?” he asks.

“Doesn’t make me feel anything,” Cersei says. She puts down her drink and leaves.

Elsewhere in King’s Landing….Ned Stark is finally talking to the last person to see Jon Aryn alive. She’s an infant girl – another of the king’s bastards, it turns out. Her mother is one of Baelish’s whores. In the front room, Baelish is lounging on a couch with two of his other employees.

“Brothels make a much better investment than ships, I find – whores rarely sink!” Baelish chortles, apropos of nothing. Somebody just likes Aiden Gillen's way with a one-liner.

As one of the whores catches the eye of Jory, Ned’s guard, and starts to do a little strip tease number for him, Ned asks Baelish just how many bastards Robert had (“more than you”) and why Jon Aryn was hunting them all down. Perhaps he was feeling fatherly, Baelish suggests. It’s going nowhere. Ned stomps out and Jory almost gets left behind ogling.

And it would have been good if he had. Ned and Jory leave the whorehouse….and walk smack into a circle of knights in red cloaks that’s formed around the whorehouse door.

Ned remembers him. He was taken – at Ned’s command. Jaime pulls his sword out of its sheath, so do all his knights, and Baelish skedaddles yelling that he’ll get the city guard. Sure. Ned tells Jaime that if Ned is killed, so will Tyrion be.

“You’re right. Take him alive, kill his men,” Jaime says.

And there’s blood everywhere for a few minutes, as Jory and Ned fight off Jaime and his busload of swordsmen. Things slow down when Jaime sticks his dagger into Jory’s eye – and just when I had finally learned his name! – and then swaggers over to Ned, sword held out at eye level.

(And forgive me for pausing here to note that Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who in this scene is just rocking a kind of beige leather trench-coat thing, is seriously growing on me. That swagger! That hair! He’s got that cocky-but-cute thing going for him – think Nathan Fillion, or a very young Harrison Ford.)

Ned and Jaime attack each other, and the rest of the knights fall back. They’re evenly matched and whaling away -- judging by their expressions, perhaps even enjoying this more than they did hanging around the castle. As they're locked in a grapple, one of Jaime’s knights steps forward – and sticks his spear through Ned’s leg.

Ned falls to his knees. Jaime, furious, walks over to the knight and coldcocks him with the handle of his sword. Then he mounts his horse. Inside the whorehouse, the baby starts to scream.